


In Trust

by novelDaydreamer



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: AU, Gen, Kidfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-11-28 20:30:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20972597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novelDaydreamer/pseuds/novelDaydreamer
Summary: Agatha spent two months wandering the Wasteland and managed to run across a few Jaegers in need of help. Barry was out there for a lot longer.(Those pesky hero instincts never do go away)





	1. Chapter 1

The trick to living on the run was moving on _ before _the neighbors became suspicious. Get the timing right, and you were just a mechanic trying to raise his niece, moving wherever the work was. Stay too long, and they started wondering why you kept dodging questions about your past, or what happened to your niece's parents. Or, more recently, why she had such terrible headaches.

The downside was that, while they were on the road, Barry relied on out-of-date maps and gossip to tell him whether the next town would be safe. And sometimes, things changed faster than gossip could keep up with. 

"Uncle Barry!" Agatha shoved through the market crowd, bare feet slapping on hard-packed dirt. "Uncle Barry, they've got a construct and they're going to kill him and he didn't even _ do _ anything! They - Ow!" Barry gave her his hand. Agatha clutched it for support, hanging from his arm as she bent over and whimpered in pain, and for the thousandth time he silently cursed the necessity.

"Is the little miss alright?" The grocer leaned over the front of his stall to get a glimpse of Agatha, looking honestly concerned. Late summer fruit rolled in the neat wooden boxes, displayed under an overhang to shade them from the mid-afternoon sun.

"Yes, she's fine. She gets headaches sometimes." Barry pulled Agatha closer, tucking her carefully against his leg. Her breathing was already steadying: this would be a mercifully short one. "What was that about a construct?"

The grocer looked around at the crowd - several of whom were looking their way now, damn - and lowered his voice. "That's not just a construct, little miss, that's a Jaegermonster. Don't worry, they've all done _ plenty _ to deserve an execution."

_ Damn and blast. _ "Didn't the Jaegermonsters sign on with the Baron?" If Klaus - if the Baron's people were combing the area, he and Agatha needed to be out of there _ yesterday_.

"Well, I heard _ most _ of them did, and they _ say _ he's keeping them in line." The grocer's sniff gave away what he thought of that. Barry couldn't honestly say he disagreed, though almost certainly for different reasons. "But there's some of them that wouldn't bend to a proper army, and they've been running wild ever since the Baron drove them out of Mechanicsburg. I heard from Cosmin, he's on the guard, they caught one this morning nosing around inside the _ walls_. Nobody knows how he got in."

"...I see," Barry said. "We should finish this up quickly, then."

"Probably a good idea to keep the little miss away from it," the grocer agreed, tone shifting back to something more professional. "Will you be paying in pax-guilder?"

Agatha was kind enough to wait until the bargaining had finished and they had left the market square, vibrating in pain and frustrated anger, before she burst out "You'll help him, right?"

Barry crouched down to look her in the eye. "Agatha…"

"Because he didn't even _ do _ anything. They just _ found _ him." Agatha was very set on that point.

_ He spent the last several centuries terrorizing Europa. He helped kidnap your grandmother. He's working for the Other. _

...Except that if rumour could be trusted, that last one wasn't true.

It was always possible that this was some kind of ruse, sending a few of the Jaegers to scout under the pretense that they weren't part of the army. But… from the rumours he'd been hearing (and steering clear of) about child-stealing ghost women, they already had the Geisterdamen for that.

And as little as he'd ever had to do with the Jaegers, Barry knew that they didn't like to separate from the pack. Finding one alone - and if he was still captured and the town hadn't been razed, he must be - was more than unusual.

If this one had turned down the Baron, he might know something about the Other's plans. He might be willing to share that knowledge, if only for the sake of old oaths.

...It was still a _ monumentally _ stupid idea. Even if the Jaeger didn't reveal him, even if he turned out to still be loyal to the Heterodyne name, the risk of someone matching his description being associated with a Jaegermonster in any context was too high. He and Agatha had been staying ahead of pursuit solely because he was keeping a _ low profile_. Random acts of heroics were something they couldn't afford.

(But Agatha was looking at him like people used to, back when it was him and Bill and they thought they could fix the world by fighting it.)

Barry sighed.

"First, we get you back to the wagon," he said firmly. "He was right about that, I don't want you involved with this."

"But you-"

"And then," Barry continued, "I will take a look, and I'll see if there's anything I can do."

It was an extremely weak promise, all things considered, but it satisfied his niece.

Barry might have taken a little longer than was entirely necessary checking the traps on the wagon, and making sure that everything was stowed for a quick departure. Agatha promised 'cross her heart and lightning strike her' not to touch the door, and to pull the emergency switch if anyone tried to get in.

All he honestly intended to do was look, long enough to tell Agatha that there wasn't anything he could (or should) do. Still, Barry found himself falling into old patterns, sliding a selection of useful devices into pockets placed just _ so _ for minimal profile and easy access. With one last careful check of the locks, he pulled his cap low over his face and departed.

East Krumminey was a small town, contained within a set of thick stone-and-mortar walls that, as one local had informed Barry proudly, had once held back a Heterodyne raid. 

(Barry had nodded politely and not mentioned the nine different places he had seen so far where a sufficiently athletic _ human _ could climb over them).

Apart from a dirt clearing near the gate for small airships or wagons, and an open market just past it, the rest of the town was squeezed full of shops, workshops, and houses. Streets wound around and between them with no real plan. Barry strolled along with his hands in his pockets, looking in this or that shop window as he listened to the townsfolk. A few people glanced his way, but none with more than idle curiosity.

Murmured conversation led him to a tiny jailhouse, where three men in patched uniforms were having a hushed argument.

"-f he was the Baron's-"

"-before he escapes-"

"-might not work, we should just-"

"-_ you _ want to go in there?"

Barry wandered past them without paying them any particular attention. He continued two streets further before circling back and, quietly, approaching the jailhouse from behind.

One narrow barred window looked into a shadowed alley. Barry briefly considered - but no, he hadn't brought the self-arranging mirrors _ or _ the periscope, and he didn't have enough glass to put one together on the spot. Besides, from the recent tracks in the dust, he wouldn't be the first to take a covert glance at a captured Jaeger.

He just waited for a hurried apprentice to pass by and strode casually over.

The cell was big enough for six. Unsurprisingly, there was only one occupant.

The Jaeger was hunched over, giving Barry an excellent view of the ropes wrapping his arms from wrist to elbow, and legs from ankle to knee. He had his legs folded back awkwardly; as Barry watched, grey claw-tips scraped against the ropes, sliding more than cutting due to the poor angle. White horns curved back over a head of black hair, caught unevenly underneath the strap for some kind of gag.

(He didn't have a hat, which was subtly wrong in the same nagging way as an incomplete design.)

No guards in the room itself. The stone walls were thick and sturdy, but the cell door - from what Barry could see of it - was made of the same cheap iron bars as the window. Proof against drunk or angry townsfolk, but not meant to hold up against even the ordinary kind of construct, much less a Jaeger. And even with the slow way the ropes were fraying, the Jaeger would almost certainly manage to free himself before the guards decided on an execution method. 

No real need for assistance. Barry could go back and tell Agatha everything was fine, and they could be well out of there before anything happened.

Barry… 

...hesitated.

The window was, by design, too narrow to pass through. The only way out of the cell was the front door. To escape, the Jaeger would have to go through the arguing guardsmen and at least part of the town.

Apart from the Jaeger, the cell was bare. Whatever weapons he had carried were probably gone.

(Claws and teeth were more than enough of a weapon for any Jaeger Barry had ever seen.)

The Jaeger twitched. Looked up, scanning the cell. His head craned back.

Over a wooden gag, startled crimson eyes met Barry's own.

_Damn_, was the first thought to cross Barry's mind. Followed swiftly by, _of course_ _it would be _that_ one_. 

Ivo was making a muffled noise behind his gag, twisting around to face the window. Barry held up a finger to his lips, and the Jaeger immediately went deathly silent.

'_Two minutes. Then out of town,' _he mouthed clearly.

Ivo nodded quickly. He was frozen utterly still otherwise, staring fixedly at Barry without even seeming to notice his awkward position.

To Barry, it was uncomfortably reminiscent of some of the captives he and Bill had rescued from the worst of the Sparks they'd encountered. 

(It didn't make sense. Ivo had already gotten partway through freeing himself, and he hadn't looked particularly worried about it. Jaegers were used to dangerous situations. There was _ no reason _ he should be looking at Barry like the desperately hoped-for saviour from a fate worse than death.)

It didn't matter. Barry pulled out one of the more useful concoctions from his adventuring days and lobbed it gently between the bars. 

The pellet immediately began dissolving, gas hissing out into the still air. Ivo almost lost his balance as the ropes around his limbs abruptly loosened, knots sliding through each other like they had been oiled. He immediately ripped the gag off and worked his jaw, grimacing.

Barry held his finger up to his lips again. He could feel Ivo's eyes on him through the stone wall as he walked away.

Precisely two minutes and three seconds later, distant yelling rose from the direction of the jailhouse. Barry, halfway to the gate, didn't look back.


	2. Chapter 2

If Barry was being honest with himself, he would have to admit that he expected Ivo to catch up as soon as East Krumminey was safely in the distance.

That didn't make the sudden  _ thump _ on the roof of the wagon any more welcome.

Barry pulled the breaks. With a slight mechanical whirring, the wagon stopped in the middle of the road, legs automatically bracing to counter its momentum. 

Their passenger, not expecting the abrupt halt, did not manage the same. Barry watched with dry amusement as a grey form was catapulted several dozen feet ahead, crashing hard in the dust.

"Is he okay?" Agatha ran up to look through the windows of the driver's compartment, more intrigued than afraid.

"Yes, he's fine." Even as Barry spoke, the Jaeger was popping right back up, barely pausing to brush himself off before jogging over to the wagon. "Stay inside. I'm going to talk to him."

Rather than jump down, Barry chose to use the wide steps that folded down with a  _ click _ from the fortified door. He stood on the bottom step, hands in his pockets, and took a moment to study Ivo as the Jaeger approached.

If any Jaeger was going to refuse the Baron's offer to conquer Europa, it  _ would  _ be the only one who had turned his back on slaughter for slaughter's sake. Ivo hadn't been a friend of Barry's, but he and Bill had reached a sort of an understanding, years before. Enough that Bill had gone to him for help with a few uniquely Mechanicsburg problems. Bill had even mentioned to Barry the possibility of taking him adventuring with them for a while, before a near-disaster with drunken tourists trying to assault the Jaegerhall had reminded them why that was a bad idea.

It wasn't enough of a history to guarantee  _ trust _ (not that any amount was, these days), but it was enough to grant him the benefit of the doubt.

(The defences were armed, and Barry's right hand gripped the trigger of a death ray. If things went badly, he and Agatha  _ would _ get away.)

Ivo stopped in the shadow of the wagon, grinning ear to ear. He was still hatless, dressed in a grey shirt and dark red pants that looked as though they had seen better days.

Ivo, conversely, looked like he was having one of the best days of his life.

"Master Barry," he said, the relief in his voice overwhelming. "Iz hy glad to see hyu! Vere haz hyu been all dis time?"

"Hiding," Barry said shortly.

The smile fell. 

"From who?"

(That wasn't a good sign. Either he knew, and was lying… or he  _ didn't  _ know, and the value of his information was much less than Barry had hoped.

Nothing for it but to ask.)

"What are you doing here?"

"Lookink for hyu and hyu brodder." Ivo's eyes flicked between Barry and the green bulk of the wagon behind him: an oblong capsule balanced on four rough clank legs, well-maintained but weathered and lacking obvious sparkwork. Not the kind of thing that Barry Heterodyne would travel in. "If hyu iz hidink, dot explains a lot," he added, with a note of forced levity. "Hy thought Hy vas losink my touch!"

_ Not  _ good. Barry's finger rested over the trigger. "What does the Baron want with me?"

"Hy iz not vorkink for him."

"What do  _ you  _ want?"

Ivo sighed loudly and rolled his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. It made Barry aware of how tense his own were; he took a deeper breath and tried to loosen them, at least enough not to shoot anyone accidentally.

"Vat Hy  _ vant _ s," Ivo said, "iz to be back in my office. Hy bets dere iz mimmoths nezting in de drawers."

"I'm not going to Mechanicsburg," Barry snapped.

"Hokay," Ivo replied easily. Too easily. "So vat iz hyu doink?"

Traveling. Trying to keep Agatha safe. Trying to ensure the Other's people couldn't prove he was still alive. (Trying to ignore all the things that he could have fixed, if he just had Bill with him. (Failing.))

None of which he was going to tell Ivo. "You found me. Now what?"

"Vell, dot depends on hyu." Ivo put his hand up as if to adjust a hat, touched hair, and redirected it to scratch the back of his head. "Vould be nize if hyu kem back, but hyu iz - vell, Hy iz not schtupid enuff to tink Hy ken make  _ hyu _ do enyting."

Barry's jaw tightened. "But you think someone else can?"

"Not if hyu dun vant to." His gaze stayed level, meeting Barry's squarely. "Hy vork for hyu first. Hyu gots a job for me, Hy'll even let hyu put eet on credit."

That… did open up possibilities. 

Barry couldn’t risk getting close to anyone who might recognize him. He had spent night after night agonizing over the list of names, people he  _ might _ go to, if he became desperate… but there was nobody he knew for  _ certain _ , not now. And the ones most likely to be trustworthy were the least likely to know anything more useful than the rumours he picked up on the road.

But for all that they were a thousand different kinds of monstrous, Jaegers that one wasn't personally acquainted with tended to blend together. If Ivo could get solid information on what the Baron was planning, even some idea of what he knew…

If Ivo could be trusted.

Ivo suddenly jerked back, his eyes widening in surprise. Far too late, Barry registered the quiet creak of the door hatch.

"I told you to stay inside," he said, voice very  _ deliberately _ calm. He didn't dare take his eyes off the Jaeger, now glancing between him and the door behind him with a stunned expression.

Agatha ignored him completely. "Are you the construct they were gonna kill?" she asked.

There was a long, awkward pause. 

"...Yah, dot's me," Ivo said, finally. He didn't quite manage casual, but it was an impressive effort for someone whose eyes were still bugging out.

(Surprise. Not recognition, not calculation. Nothing to say he had any idea that Bill and Lucrezia's daughter even existed. 

Something inside Barry relaxed.)

"Agatha." Barry risked a  _ look _ at his niece. Only her head was visible around the edge of the open door, which he could already foresee she would argue counted under a strict definition of ‘stay inside.’

Agatha frowned at him. "The traffic detector is vibrating," she protested, looking injured in the way only a six-year-old could. 

That was actually a good reason to interrupt, under normal circumstances. 

Ivo was still observing, silently. Barry sighed. "What frequency?"

"Um-" Agatha’s head vanished around the side of the door, ponytail flipping back in a blond trail. "Five cycles per second," she reported.

Barry did the calculation in his head, judged the road, and grimaced. There would be another wagon in eyesight in less than a minute, close enough to make out facial features maybe two minutes after that. Time to wrap this up.

Ivo couldn't know the exact details of the vibration detection system, but he followed Barry's glance down the road. "Hyu vants ve continue dis later?" he asked, already sounding resigned.

From inside the wagon came a small noise of disappointment.

What Barry  _ wanted _ was for Ivo to forget this encounter entirely. That was, he acknowledged, unlikely to happen.

(If he was  _ really _ being honest, he'd known that from the moment he met the Jaeger's eyes in the cell.)

The Jaegers may never have travelled with the Herodyne Boys, but everyone knew they were Heterodyne monsters. Being associated with a Jaeger - especially one who insisted on acting like they were friends - meant constantly chancing that the wrong person would figure out who he was. Keeping him close was an unacceptable risk.

The risk of letting him leave, knowing that Barry was alive and traveling with a child, might be even worse.

Barry looked into hopeful crimson eyes. Thought about Agatha in the wagon behind him.

Took his hand out of his pocket.

"You can ride with us for now," he heard himself say.

(He tried to ignore the way that toothy expression lit up.)

By the time the caravan came into view, their wagon was lumbering along again. As Barry made the necessary course corrections, listening to Agatha eagerly showing Ivo the contents of every single drawer in the capsule, he tried to convince himself that he wasn’t making a horrible, horrible mistake.


	3. Chapter 3

It said something that Barry could listen to Agatha's excited tangent and count down to the exact moment that the headache hit.

Not a good something.

“Do you want to lie down?”

“No! I’m not done showing him everything yet, and I wanted - I was gonna make -” Agatha keened in misery.

“Go to bed,” Barry said softly. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Agatha mumbled unhappily, but cooperated as Barry got her ready for bed and tucked her in for the night. He turned off the light and sat next to her, gently stroking her hair. In only a few minutes, her breathing evened out in sleep.

Barry waited a few minutes longer, then stood and drew the curtains around her bed.

“She’s asleep,” he said quietly.

The clawed feet dangling in the doorway pulled up out of sight, and a moment later Ivo flipped down from the roof, landing inside with a dull _ thud_. The door hatch swung closed behind him.

Barry motioned towards the driver’s compartment.

The wagon was larger than it looked on the outside - a subtle bit of sparkwork, but a necessary one for the guardian of an energetic six-year-old. Still, it had only been designed for two people. Barry sat in the driver’s seat, turned to face the inside of the cabin, and Ivo folded himself onto Agatha’s stool, resting his elbows on his knees. He studied Barry, one white fang glinting above a contemplative frown.

Barry was braced for questions, about Mechanicsburg, and the people they were hiding from, and why he was wandering Europa with a child in tow.

So, of course, the blow came from a completely different direction.

“Master Bill?” was all he said. 

Barry exhaled sharply, squeezing his eyes shut. “Dead,” he managed after a moment.

Ivo nodded, solemn. “Und Miz Agatha, she iz hiz daughter?”

Throat tight, all Barry could do was nod in reply.

The lamp in the compartment was weak, just enough to illuminate the controls without destroying the driver’s night vision. Moonlight fell through the window, onto the dozens of drawers built into the walls, holding parts and weapons and everything essential. Ivo sat, half in shadow, looking back at the main hold of the wagon as if he could see through the flimsy fabric to the sleeping child behind. 

“She gots hiz face,” he said, as if to himself. “De colorink, and de noze, she gets dot from her mama, but de rezt ov it - dot’s Master Bill.”

Barry hadn’t really thought about it like that. It was hard to say a little girl really “looked like” anyone, apart from Lucrezia’s too-obvious colouring. But… yes, that was Bill’s bright smile he saw in her on the better days. And now that he thought about it, there _ was _ a look about her eyes that he had seen in his brother - and before that, his mother.

It was obscurely comforting.

Ivo sighed and nodded to himself one more time. When he turned back to Barry, his eyes were clear.

"Zo vot haz hyu been doink?” he asked. “Just travelling?"

Barry coughed to clear his throat. "We settle for a few months at a time,” he replied. It would be easy enough to trace them back if Ivo wanted to. “Move on before we start attracting notice. Small villages, mostly, fixing things like water pumps, spike traps, wagons… I try to avoid sparkwork, it’s too noticeable."

“Vas hyu goink anyvere specific? Hy vas headink south, toward de coast.”

Barry blinked. "And you ended up _ here? _"

Ivo scratched the back of his head. "Heh. Vell, dere vas dis army ov bubble tings on de road, Hy gots a bit turned around. Hyu knows how it iz."

Despite himself Barry felt his mouth twitching into a grin. “I’ll have to avoid them. Were they constructs resembling bubbles, or did they attack using bubbles?”

“Vell, hy dunno if dey vas _ constructs, _ bot dey looked like giant bubbles und dey vent right for me ven dey saw me…”

Barry sat back and listened as Ivo explained, in great and humorous detail, exactly how he had ended up over two hundred kilometers west of his intended path. He interspersed the story with asides on the state of the roads and local political situation, and Barry took mental notes. Partway through the story, he motioned for Ivo to pause, pulled out a scrap of paper and a pencil, and started taking physical notes instead.

“We’ll want to go north, then, through Lunkhauser,” Barry said when Ivo finally trailed to a halt. “They should have had time to clean up the sap by now, and I don't want to take Agatha any further east if the Empire is being that active."

"Hokay," Ivo said.

There was a hesitation behind it, draining the energy that Ivo’s cheerful story had given to the night. Something he wasn't sure how to bring up.

Barry wasn't surprised when he said, with a hint of caution, "Hyu know de army iz dere if hyu vants help. Hokay, most of dem vould not be goot at de hidink ting, bot dere iz vun or two ov my brodders vot ken be sottle."

"Oh, I'm sure they'd _ help _ me." Bitterness gave the words an ugly twist. 

Ivo straightened sharply. "Dey iz _ loyal _-"

“They signed on with the Other as soon as we were gone.” 

(It had been... quite a blow when he'd heard the first of those rumours. Agatha had started Heterodyning just the day before, he had barely even considered the _ possibility _ of returning, and his first careful inquiries about the state of Mechanicsburg had been met with eager gossip about how the Baron was using _ Jaegermonsters _ now, and did that mean they were going to start raiding?

Barry had known they hated him, had known they were bloodthirsty raiders without anything resembling a moral code, but somehow he'd still thought…

_ Well._)

“Dey - Iz hyu tellink me de _ Baron _ iz de _ Odder_?”

The shout echoed in the metal cabin.

Without another word, Barry stood and headed back to where the curtain around Agatha’s bed was already flapping as a flailing hand tangled in it.

“‘ncle Barry? Wha -” With a rustle of fabric, Agatha’s rumpled blonde head poked through the gap in the curtains. She blinked at him blearily. “Wha’ happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Barry said gently. “Everything is fine, we’re safe. You can go back to sleep.” 

“You were _ loud, _” she said, more clearly this time. Agatha was already waking up, more alert with each passing second. Looking around the cabin for anything out of place, squinting to peer out of the front windows for whatever dangers the Wastelands had decided to throw at them.

Damn Ivo for pointing it out. Mind already casting in that direction, Barry couldn’t help but see the shadow of Bill in her gaze.

“Dot’s my fault,” Ivo said. He had followed Barry, hovering awkwardly behind him. His voice was a bit too rough to pass for calm, posture just a hair too stiff for someone whose world wasn’t falling apart. (Barry couldn’t really blame him.) “Hy forgot hyu vas sleepink. Sorry.”

Agatha narrowed her eyes at him, but must have been too tired to pick up the subtleties. “Don’t do it again,” she ordered.

“Hy von’t,” Ivo promised.

“You should go back to sleep,” Barry said. He put a hand on her head, letting her lean against his palm. “It’s late, and we’ll need to get an early start.”

“Mmn. ‘kay.”

Ivo stayed silent while Barry coaxed Agatha into lying down and tucked her carefully in. While Barry sat with her, waiting for her to drift off again.

When Barry turned around, finally, Ivo was watching him with something dark and old in his eyes.

“Dey _ don’t know, _ ” he said quietly, holding Barry’s gaze. _ “ _None ov dem doz.”

Barry’s expression must have given away what he thought of that. Ivo shook his head sharply. “My brodders iz not goot at sottle,” he insisted. “Hy haff heard dem. Dey iz _ proud _ ov fitink de vasps. Dey _ hate _ de Odder.” 

“Why would they _ care? _”

"De Odder killed leedle Master Klaus." Ivo said, deadly serious. Barry hid a flinch. "Und dey iz proud - ve iz _ all _ proud - of our loyalty to de Heterodynes. De vasps _ force _ pipple to help de Odder, but _ ve _ iz immune. Dey vould not vork for de Odder if dey knew vat dey vas doink."

Barry looked at Ivo and felt very, very tired.

“It’s late," was all he said. "We'll need to get an early start.”

Ivo looked away first.

“Yah, hokay. Hy ken sleep on de roof.”


End file.
